CSCI 209: Software Development

General Information

Professor: Simon D. Levy
Lecture: MWF 1:00-2:00 pm Parmly 405
Office: Parmly 407B
E-mail: simon.d.levy@gmail.com
Office Hours: MWF 2:00-5:30, and by appointment

Objectives

After taking this course, you should be able to

- Develop complex programs using a statically typed programming language
- Perform such tasks as constructing class diagrams in UML, generating program documentation, generating unit tests, refactoring program code, and exercising version control
- Structure software systems using concepts such as interfaces, encapsulation, inheritance, generic collections, and polymorphism
- Use several design patterns to solve problems
- Construct event-driven programs with graphical user interfaces

Textbooks

The book listed below are required. All are available to W&L students via Safari Books. We will have additional readings from journal articles and books on reserve in the Science Library.

- Horstmann, Core Java for the Impatient, 1st Edition
- Horstmann, Core Java Volume I — Fundamentals, 10th Edition
- Bell and Beer, Introducing GitHub: A Non-Technical Guide, 2nd edition
- Beck, JUnit Pocket Guide: Quick Look-up and Advice
- Burnette, Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide: Using the Full-Featured IDE

Brief Overview

This course introduces the concepts, tools, and techniques used in software development. Topics include

- The software life cycle
- Advanced concepts of object-oriented analysis and design
- APIs and program documentation
- Systematic testing
- Design patterns
- The use of the Unified Modeling Language
- Refactoring code during maintenance
- Extreme programming, pair programming, and rapid prototyping
- Event-driven programming and graphical user interfaces
  multithreading

Classroom work will consist of lecture and discussion. Written work will consist of several team-based programming projects, homework exercises that employ tools used in software development, and a comprehensive final exam.

Grading

The written work for the course will consist of

- Two in-class exams (25% of grade)
- Individual programming projects (50% of the grade)
- Team programming project (25% of grade)

The grading scale will be 93-100 A; 90-92 A-; 87-89 B+; 83-86 B; 80-82 B-; 77-79 C+; 73-76 C; 70-72 C-; 67-69 D+; 63-66 D; 60-62 D-; below 60 F.

Honor System

All exams will be done without books or notes and without assistance from other people. You may NOT work with another person on the homework assignments. Start each assignment well before it is due so that if you have trouble with it, you can get help from me during office hours.

Accommodations

Washington and Lee University makes reasonable academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. All undergraduate accommodations must be approved through the Office of the Dean of the College. Students requesting accommodations for this course should present an official accommodation letter within the first two weeks of the (fall or winter) term and schedule a meeting outside of class time to discuss accommodations. It is the student’s responsibility to present this paperwork in a timely fashion and to follow up about accommodation arrangements. Accommodations for test-taking should be arranged with the professor at least a week before the date of the test or exam.

Homework Assignments

Perhaps the most important aspect of the course is the homework assignments you do. Note that this counts for a substantial part of your course grade. Homeworks will be due in your private github repository on 11:59 PM of the due date. No late work or other forms of submission will be accepted. Serious problems (health / family / personal emergencies) that interfere with attendance / homework should be handled through the Office of the Dean.

Tentative Schedule

	Monday	Wednesday	Friday
24 Aug Week 1	Course Outline	Basic Java syntax and semantics	I/O and numbers
31 Aug Week 2	Primitive and reference types Equality and comparisons Strings and arrays	Classes and methods	Preconditions, postconditions, exceptions, and javadoc Due: Project1
07 Sep Week 3	Packages	GUIs with BreezySwing	Collections and interfaces
14 Sep Week 4	File processing	File processing	Due: Project2 project2.zip
21 Sep Week 5	Exam #1	Exam 1 discussion	Inheritance and composition
28 Sep Week 6	Abstract classes	Iterators	Graphics and GUIs Due: Project #3 command.txt
05 Oct Week 7	Numeric I/O and handing errors with dialogs	Loading images from files	Due: Project #4 project4.zip
12 Oct Week 8	Design patterns: iterator, composite, and decorator	The strategy pattern
19 Oct Week 9			Review Due: Project5 project5.zip
26 Oct Week 10	Exam #2	The strategy pattern: comparisons and layouts	The strategy pattern: map, filter, and reduce
02 Nov Week 11	Linked structures	The singleton pattern I	The singleton pattern II
09 Nov Week 12	Tools: JUnit	Refactoring and extreme programming Due: Project6a FreeCellApp	Working with jar files
16 Nov Exam Week			Due: Project6b